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Example research essay topic: Wrong Thing 10 Years - 1,960 words

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I dont think theres genius in my writing Observer: What is Hotel Honolulu about? Theroux: I see it as a book about a place which is very difficult to write about. There are two places that are hard to write about. A place like Britain, England in particular, which has been written about by everybody, and then the place thats never been written about. Ive tried to find a form that would accommodate the place that Ive been living in for 11 years.

Obs: Is it the first attempt to make a literature of Hawaii? Theroux: I dont know of any other book. There are books about Hawaii, such as James A. Micheners Tales of the South Pacific.

Robert Louis Stevenson didnt like it. He thought it was silly, full of missionaries and uncomfortable. He didnt like the weather and then he took off to Samoa. Obs: And the books also about you, of course. Theroux: Lets say a version of me. I wanted to write about a writer who had stopped writing, a person with writers block.

Its something that interests me a lot because knock on wood Ive never had it. Its about a man who is suffering through this period of 10 years of not writing anything, whereas in the last 10 years Ive actually written 10 books. Obs: You seem to be wanting to say in your work generally, but in this book more than ever before, that all fiction is in some way autobiography and that all autobiography is fiction. Theroux: Well, I think thats true. Everything is fiction. You only have your own life to work with in the way that a biographer only has the letters and journals to work with.

Obs: Whats fiction for? Theroux: For telling the truth. And I think its a version of the truth which is made up of Obs: Lies? Theroux: Speculations more than lies, but it really is the most truthful thing at its best. Thats why people still read it and why we still need it. Obs: The narrator says: I used to be a writer.

Theres a lot of self-criticism, almost self-loathing in the book. Is this your Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold? Theroux: There is a Gilbert Pinfoldish story here. Its not self-loathing; I think its like exorcising a fear, a fear of not being able to write. Its also taking the curse off the evil eye. One of my fears is not writing.

I dont know how to do anything else. Obs: Did you always want to be a writer? Theroux: No. What I really wanted to be was a useful person.

I wanted to be a doctor; I even did pre-medical. Obs: How did you switch? Theroux: I was actually on my way to medical school. Thats what I was reading at university science, embryology and chemistry. Obs: When you were growing up, who else did you read? Theroux: Travellers and people who had two strings on their bows.

The writer-doctor, the explorer-doctor, the explorer-writer, the painter-writer. Obs: Like who? Theroux: Well Chekhov, Somerset Maugham, Greene and Edward Lear. I loved Lear and still do. In the end, partly because of Vietnam, I thought I want to just leave the country and hide and not be in the army, so I went to Africa.

Obs: You were in Africa, then London and now youre in Hawaii. Are you a natural expatriate? Theroux: Im not as much an expatriate as you might think. When I began to make some money, I really wanted to have a home. Obs: Which you had here, surely? Theroux: Yes, but I felt like an alien.

I felt like someone off a rocket ship, like ET, anyway. So when I made some money in the mid-Seventies I bought a house in Cape Cod, near where I grew up. I always considered that home. Yes, I was an expatriate but I could pop on a plane and go home. Its not like being Rimbaud in Ethiopia who had given up writing.

Rimbaud abandoned everything. I was never in that position. Obs: But the I in this book, the Paul Theroux figure in this book, actually makes a point of saying hes abandoned everything. Theroux: All his bridges are burnt. Obs: You like to self-dramatic, dont you? Why is that?

Theroux: Thats how I feel sometimes. Obs: How did you feel when you first went to Hawaii? Theroux: I was really out on a limb. If you look at a map you see that Hawaii is in the middle of nowhere. Its 17 hours of straight flying from London.

Its very far away and sometimes you feel as if youre on another planet. But I like that. Also, thats ideal for writing. Obs: You write: One of my first pleasures in Hawaii was that my past did not matter.

Theroux: Yes. Youre just a white guy, a hole. Hole technically means of another breath. Youre just a ghost, a wraith.

In most societies, a stranger is just a ghost. I like that. Obs: But youre also a very literary person. Youre steeped in literature, youre very well read and I remember you in London being deeply involved in the literary world. Dont you miss that? Theroux: No, I really dont.

When I was living in London, I had a very happy home and I was living in the bosom of my family. I liked that much more than being a member of literary society. I knew, and still know, most of the writers in London and literary London is a very friendly place in the sense that people know each other very well. I wrote a piece about Bruce Chains funeral.

At Bruce's funeral, everyone came together; everyone knew Bruce and everyone knew each other. His funeral was the high watermark of that decades creative activity. It was also the day that Salman Rushdie got the fatwa. After that, I felt: Well, this is it, time to go. Obs: Your marriage broke up or was breaking up? Theroux: Well, yes.

It didnt so much break up as this is a very difficult thing to talk about, but I was kind of leaving. I think the problem wasnt my wife at all it was me. I felt very restless in 1989 and I felt superfluous. I had these years of feeling the superfluous man, like Oblomov. I had one of those periods of questioning what I was doing and wondering about life. Obs: So you went to Hawaii?

Theroux: When my wife and I split up, I went to the Pacific. I spent months and months travelling around islands. I recorded that in The Happy Isles of Oceania. It wasnt the total answer but it helped. If you have something on your mind, it really helps to be alone and be among total strangers in a completely alien environment. In the global village, its not that easy because people have cellphones.

Obs: Do you have a cellphone? Theroux: No, I dont. I draw the line there. I think that would be death for me. I dont think Ive ever seen a person having a serious conversation on a cellphone.

Its like a kiddie thing, a complete time waster. Obs: Do you have email? Theroux: Not when Im travelling, but in normal life I do. Obs: Theres a lot of sex in Hotel Honolulu. Theroux: Ive been told theres a lot of sex in everything I write.

Obs: Theres a great deal in this novel of all kinds. I wondered whether youre reflecting something about Hawaii or whether it reflects something about you. Theroux: Theres maybe more sex than usual because hotels are just bedrooms. Its also true in a place like Honolulu with so many visitors. I think its true to the place, true to the hotel and true to Honolulu. Obs: Is the hotel a real hotel?

Theroux: No, pure invention. By some stroke of fortune, no ones ever called a hotel Hotel Honolulu. Obs: Theres a bit at the end here: The only place that can truly be hell is the one that was once paradise. Is this what youre saying about Hawaii?

Theroux: Yes, because its an Eden thats been invaded by traffic and mobile phones. Obs: So, youve gone all the way across the world and youre in hell? Theroux: Not hell, but a place thats been disfigured by people and the people who have gone there. Obs: What will the Hawaiians say about your book?

Theroux: They probably wont like it. People who dont read books a lot are threatened by books. If it was reviewed in Hawaii, it would be universally panned. The idea of being written about is threatening. There are certain recognisable people in it, but most of them are dead. Obs: And, of course, youve got Leon Edel &# 91; the biographer of Henry James&# 93; in the story.

It must have been a great relief for you to find him there. Theroux: Amazing. I used him in the book. It wasnt quite like that. The way I wrote about it was as though we were two aliens from a different planet. Meeting him was wonderful.

Obs: So the Edel story is a factionalised version of the truth. That wasnt true of Sir Vidias Shadow, though, was it? Theroux: Sir Vidias Shadow is everything that I could remember about my friendship &# 91; with V. S.

Naipaul&# 93; and knowing him. This was a master-servant relationship. People who know Naipaul tend to be very nervous around him, saying the wrong thing, serving the wrong wine, or just saying the wrong thing about his books. When he finally left Andr&execute; Deutsch, Diane Athill said: I was delighted when he left; it was such a sense of relief, I almost wept with joy. I never had to be nice to him again. So its a sense of relief.

Its like selling your yacht. Obs: But that book is not just about relief. Theroux: You cant write about a friend, you can only write about a former friend. I thought I can write the book that Id been narrating in my head all this time To me, its one of the best books Ive written. I think its a very satisfying book because in my life this is the reason I cant write biography is I take too many liberties, but there are no liberties in the book.

Obs: You painted yourself in a pretty unflattering light. Theroux: Well, unsparing. I tried very hard because I couldnt do it to him and not to myself. Probably the books about me and not him. There was a kind of spurious furore about it but it will settle down.

The great thing about a book is that it goes its own way. Hype helps maybe for a month or so but in the end if a book is good, the book will look after itself and thats definitely true. Thats a Naipaul lesson, actually. And thats why its the fairest profession, because if you write something well, it will be printed. If its good, it will be absolutely deathless.

Obs: Stevenson's words are as fresh now as when they were written. They still speak to us across time and distance. Theroux: Hes completely original. Obs: Are you following in his footsteps? Theroux: I dont see the footsteps.

He died young; he wasnt there a long time and hes a true genius. You can see theres genius in his writing. I dont think theres genius in my writing. Talent maybe, not genius. Paul Theroux's books include The Great Railway Bazaar, The Family Arsenal and The Mosquito Coast. His new novel is set in Hawaii, where he now lives


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Research essay sample on Wrong Thing 10 Years

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